Agriculture could be biggest user of commercial drones

July 27, 2015

[7/27/2015] The work of Ian MacRae and Bob Koch has again made headlines, this time featured on the front page of the Star Tribune. “Unmanned aircraft vehicles are really going to change the way that we actually do agriculture,” said Ian MacRae, professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota, Crookston, who is one of the researchers. “This is really a very exciting time.” “The aphids are tiny, so we’re not trying to see the insect itself,” said University Extension entomologist Bob Koch, another researcher on the project. “We’re trying to see changes that the insect causes to the plants,” and whether those look different from changes caused by disease or a combination of insects and disease. Read the full article.